In a legal showdown that could have sweeping implications for nonviolent offenders across the United States, the NRA and other pro-freedom groups are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of a Utah woman who lost her gun rights nearly two decades ago for passing a bad check.
Melynda Vincent, now in her 40s, was convicted of a nonviolent felony 17 years ago. The offense? Writing a bad check for $498. Since then, she has turned her life around. Yet, under federal law, she remains permanently barred from owning a firearm. Vincent is now petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and restore her rights, citing the constitutional protections in the Second Amendment.
The NRA, along with the Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and FPC Action Foundation, filed an amicus brief on her behalf, urging the high court to take up the case. The pro-freedom argument is clear: the government has no constitutional basis to strip peaceful citizens of their right to keep and bear arms simply because of a long-ago, nonviolent offense.
“America’s historical tradition of firearm regulation provides support for the disarmament of only dangerous persons—disaffected persons posing a threat to the government and persons with a proven proclivity for violence,” wrote the groups in their brief. “This limited tradition ... was reflected in the debates and proposed amendments from the Constitution ratifying conventions, and throughout American history.”
Vincent’s case, officially titled Vincent v. Bondi (originally Vincent v. Garland), hinges on the precedent established in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), in which the Supreme Court ruled that modern gun laws must be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” According to her supporters, there’s no historical justification for permanently disarming nonviolent individuals who pose no present threat.
However, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t see it that way. In a February 2025 decision, the Court upheld the federal ban, arguing that, despite Bruen, the government’s interest in public safety justifies such rights-ending restrictions. “[Bruen] created a new test for determining the scope of the Second Amendment,” the judges wrote, “but the court didn’t appear to question the constitutionality of longstanding prohibitions on possession of firearms by convicted felons.”
But gun-rights advocates argue this interpretation misses the mark, emphasizing that there is a marked difference between a violent criminal who may pose a legitimate threat to society and a mother who made a poor-but-nonviolent decision almost two decades ago and has since overcome hardship and forged a better path in life.
As columnist Jacob Sullum notes in Reason, Vincent “is asking the justices to decide whether it’s constitutional to disarm people based on nothing more than a non-violent criminal conviction.”
Joseph Greenlee, NRA-ILA director of the office of litigation counsel, wrote a law review article in 2020 that is cited in Vincent’s petition, that shows that only those deemed “dangerous” or likely to threaten the peace during the Founding Era were denied access to arms—not individuals convicted of minor, nonviolent offenses.
The stakes are high not only for Vincent but for the possibly millions of Americans who have prior nonviolent felonies and have lived law-abiding lives ever since. According to a 2020 Sentencing Project report, more than 19 million Americans have felony convictions, many of them for nonviolent crimes. Under current law, nearly all are denied their Second Amendment rights for life.
Whether or not the Supreme Court agrees to hear this case remains to be seen, as the vast majority of petitions are denied for a variety of reasons. The petition has been filed and is awaiting the Court’s decision on whether to grant certiorari. This move would set the stage for a potentially landmark decision on Second Amendment rights and nonviolent felony convictions.
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